Springfield and Santa Rosa

I've stopped posting round-ups of AMA GNC racing the day or two after AMA GNC races because Fanschoice.tv posts full races for the world to catch up with at their leisure. It's awkward for European viewers to get to see the races live because of the time difference, so I don't want to spoil the possible excitement of watching a recorded race you don't know the result of.

There was another great race at Springfield last weekend. If you haven't seen the result, I won't mention it. Click fanschoice.tv to watch the 25-lapper. It'll take less that 18 minutes of your life and this is one of the few mains of the season that didn't get red flagged and restarted.

Mile racing is what people think of when they think of dirt track, but there isn't often the same excitement as good short track racing. This race is an example of cat and mouse and pure racecraft. I loved it.

Also on the agenda for this post: the commentators, Chris Carr and Scotty Deubler, regularly refer to Bryan Smith's appeal. Not a lot has been said about this on public AMA channels at least, just that it happened. Here's what I know....

At the previous race, the Central NY Half-Mile on August 20, Smith came second to championship leader, and reigning champ, Jared Mees. Meanwhile, there was a protest, it seems, by Mees' Las Vegas H-D, Rogers' Racing team about Smith's Crosley Kawasaki.

READ ABOUT BRYAN SMITH'S RADICAL CROSLEY KAWASAKI TWIN IN SB26

The protest, from what I can discover, was about an overweight rear wheel. If you're not 100% embedded in flat track that may sound strange. Every other motorsport spends £1000s making their wheels lighter, right? Well, yes, but a heavier rear wheel, in some circumstances and only up to a point - you wouldn't want a lead wheel, aids traction. Because of this, there is an upper weight limit in the AMA Pro Racing rulebook, for complete wheel and tyre assembly.

Riders fit the heaviest, heavy-duty tubes to help their bikes hook up, some riders have even been known to fill tubes with water rather than air to weight a rear wheel, but no one would risk that at an AMA race. So Smith was disqualified and his team appealed. Some buzz is saying they had approval to run the wheel and tyre assembly that later led to their disqualification.

Below is the report from AMA Pro Racing's tech log. It doesn't mention any pre-approval.

The Smith/Crosley Kawasaki appeal is a week today. That is crucial, because the final round is coming up on Sept 24 at the Santa Rosa Mile.

Conspiracy theorists are pointing to this being the XR750's final year and H-D doing everything they can to win the title. Firstly, teams are still going to race XR750s. No private teams are going to ditch the XR for an unproven XG750 until they're forced to, and XRs are still legal as far as I'm aware. Indian have just entered with a bespoke race engine, that has no production bikes roots.

Others point out that Mees was accused and proven to use banned tyre softening chemicals last season, but didn't lose points. Other conspiracy theorists point out that Mees now does a burn out celebration to cover up his continued use of those chemicals. I don't believe he'd risk getting caught and losing a hatful of points, he's too good and is always in with a chance of a win/podium, but what do I know?

I'll tell you what I know, Santa Rosa is going to be a great, high pressure finally. Including 2016, the season has gone down to the final race, between Mees and Smith three times in a row now. Bryan Smith has been second in the championship the previous three years (to Baker is 2013, the Mees twice). But don't believe he's going to win just because it's his turn. Ask Dani Pedrosa about coming second...

Our good friends at the CFTA are involved with promoting the Mile race. CFTA head man, Randy Kremlacek, has contributed features to Sideburn for years, before he got to busy race promoting.

There is going to be racing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

And it sounds like Sideburn is going to be there! G

Sideburn 25: Pre-Order

Sideburn has reached 25 and to celebrate we've slapped on a silver foil logo on a full-fat 116 pages.
Sideburn 25 is now available for pre-order, and will be sent out soon or close to 20 June. Anything you order at the same time as issue 25 will be sent out together on the same day.

Cover star: Mark 'The Rusty Butcher' Atkins

BIKES: Mule Triumph Bonneville; Asterisk Harley XG750; Yamaha XS650 budget desert racers; BSA B50MX short tracker; 1991 Harley Sportster Hooligan racer; One Down Four Up SR500 & DT400

EVENTS: Country Mile Race; Yorkshire Ride-Out

HOW TO: Perfect your body English with Chris Carr

PEOPLE: Matt 'Arctic Monkey' Helders; Nuke-Leah Tokelove; Hank Scott; Dimitri Coste; Rusty Butcher

PORTFOLIO: The photography of Preston Burroughs

ADVENTURE: Royal Enfield Himalayan tested in the mountains

Plus the regular blueprints, poetry, trophy queens, interviews and wonderful illustrations...

Order yours from Sideburn.bigcartel.com

 

Springfield Mile: This Weekend

After what seems like six months since the season opener at the Daytona double-header in March, the AMA Grand National Championship gets back under way at Springfield, Illinois this weekend. Here are some of the keys changes for 2015:

• Former #1 Jake Johnson has moved from Ramspur Lloyd Brothers to Hart Racing Kawasaki.
• Troy Bayliss and Johnny Lewis are on the Lloyd Brothers Ducati Scrambler 1000.
• Mikey Martin has moved from Triumph to Weirbach Kawasaki.
• Brandon Robinson is on the Bonneville Performance Castrol Triumph.
• 2013 Rookie of the Year Jake Shoemaker on the Bonneville Performance Triumph.
• Cory Texter is racing the new Yamaha USA 'factory' FZ-07-powered parallel twin.
• Two-time Daytona 200 winner (and winner of the 2015 race) Danny Eslick is racing an XR750 at Springfield.
• Nichole Mees (nee Cheza) has announced this will be her last full twins season.
• Sammy Halbert has teamed up with legendary tuner Johnny Goad. 
• Henry Wiles is with Zanotti (Coolbeth's teammate).
• Top contenders Mees, Coolbeth, Brad Baker and Smith all stay with the same teams.

Plus the AMA will still work with Fanschoice.tv to deliver live feeds of all the races and now they have Chris Carr giving expert analysis. The presenting team have back-up from Dani Medin, a former snowmobile racer with FHM-cover-friendly looks. At first I thought, come on, really? Then she started asking questions from a complete novice's perspective that made Chris Carr explain just why things happen the way they happen. Even if I knew some (not all) of the answers, Carr puts so much meat on the bones of what could be simple answers, it made it a great section in what could easily have been a boring wait for the racing to start. 

The Fan's Choice coverage is still not what you'd call high budget, but this year is a massive leap forward. It's stripped down and informative and the best blanket coverage the sport has ever had.

And because it's America you can hardly notice the subliminal advertising they have Chris Carr doing in some of the links (see above). But this is a buyer's market and flat track needs the coverage, so if Chris comes on dressed as Colonel Sanders and talks about a finger-lickin' move Stevie Bonsey put on Chad Cose, I'll still lap it up. G

UPDATE: Chris Carr will be selling Sideburn current and back issues in the pits at Peoria's All Star race and the All-Star race at Springfield on Sunday. Go buy a few.

Superprestigio Grand Final

I've been trying to track down and embeddable version of this and I finally found it. With the all-time great Chris Carr giving expert commentary.
Check out the DTRA's Ollie Brindley.

We have superb photos and analysis from Superprestigio coming up in the next issue. G

Watch Superprestigio LIVE

The Superprestigio goes off tomorrow evening in Barcelona, Spain. It's arguably the most hotly anticipated dirt track race of the 21st century, and Fanschoice TV, the same great service that has brought live casts and YouTube recordings of every GNC race this year,  is offering a live feed.

If that wasn't enough, our old mate Chris Carr is guest commentator.

The official press release (aimed at Americans, hence the Eastern Time - just google it to work out what time that is where you are) says:

The Superprestigio is set to begin at 12:00 noon ET (9:00 a.m. PT) on Saturday, Dec. 13 and all of the action will be broadcast live on www.FansChoice.tv, the official home for live streaming of all AMA Pro Flat Track events.

There is an incredible line-up of riders including:

SUPERPRESTIGIO CLASS
Marc Marquez - 2014 MotoGP WC
Tito Rabat - 2014 Moto2 WC
Alex Marquez - 2014 Moto3 WC
Scott Redding
Bradley Smith
Toni Elias - 2010 Moto2 WC
Troy Bayliss - 2001, 2006, 2008 WSB WC
Kenny Noyes - 2014 CEV SBK champ

OPEN CLASS
Brad Baker (2013 GNC Champ)
Jared Mees (2x GNC champ)
Shayna Texter
Joonas Kylmakorpi (4x long track WC, who is racing a Zaeta painted by Maxwell Paternoster!)
Thomas Chareyre (3x Supermoto WC - surely a dark horse)
Fabrizio Vesprini (2x FIM Euro flat track champ)
Francesco Cecchini (2014 FIM Euro flat track champ)
Ivan Cervantes (4x Enduro WC)
Taddy Blazusiak - (5x Superenduro WC)
Guy Martin

And from the DTRA in the Open Class

Tim Neave (2014 champ), Tom Neave, Aidan Collins (4x UK champ), Ollie Brindley, Alan Birtwistle

(WC = World Champion)

The winners of each class race each other in a grand final.

Below is a photos from the @marcmarquez93 instagram feed of him practicing yesterday at the Canudas track. Many of the top riders were there.

Goldentyre - UPDATED

Our friend Jan-Willem of the Dutch Brothers is selling Goldentyre road legal dirt track race tyres (that he also races on) and shipping them around Europe.
See the details on the ad above.

Jan-Willem (who, admittedly, is trying to sell them) says:
The Goldentyre went through several development stages, including expensive mould modifications. This under pressure from Chris Carr [7-time AMA champ, who worked on the development]. They came out really good and are certainly on a par with the Maxxis.

UPDATE: From Jan-Willem

These tyres are homologated in Europe and "E" marked.
Load and speed rating 
for the front 130/80-19 (27.0-7.0-19) TT 67H 
for the rear 140/80-19(27.5-7.5-19) TT 71H

Below is a KTM Jan-Willem converted to street/DTX trim with his own design of Superwheels, Dutch Brothers triple clamps, lowered rear suspension (altered linkages) and Golden Tyres.
The conversion was easy to return to standard.

[Note: Advert art by Ryan Quickfall]

Peoria TT This Sunday

Kenny Roberts only one it once (he was busy for the next few years reinventing GP racing in Yoorope).

Chris Carr won the GNC main a record 13 times.

Henry Wiles has won ten straight and only an idiot (or Brad Baker) would bet against. Baker is desperate to break the cycle. And lost out by 3/100ths last year.

All the action can be seen live, in high definition and free of charge, at FansChoice.tv.

The Expert main event is scheduled to start at 4:30pm. Central time (google it). The Pro Singles main is scheduled for a 4pm CT green flag. On-track action will begin at 10:30am CT and opening ceremonies are slated for 1:30pm CT.

We'll post the recorded main here as soon as it's available. G

Kansas Half-Mile

Garrett B got in touch from the US. He has a special place in Sideburn world as his Aermacchi was the first ever blog post. Now he's bought an ex-Davey Durelle Honda CRF450 to race. He travelled from Colorado to Kansas with his boy to race. These are his photos and captions

Only one racing pic so far, me (#302) passing for 3rd at Colby.

Garrett and his lad, Joe, #17. Check out the front mudguard.

Chris was testing new tires.

Chris Carr rode both of these over the weekend. Nothing beats the sound and feeling of the twins barreling into turn 3!

Met a countryman of yours in Kansas! Alan Birtwhistle. He was FAST!!! This is Alan Birtwhistle’s Kansas ride. Alan was for sure very quiet! He made quite a splash over here though. Won the 250-450 AM class pretty easily. He even got some personal attention from Chris Carr during practice, and ran a 450 Pro race.

NOTE: Alan should be racing at Scunthorpe tomorrow.

Dennis Hoffman’s Astro 250. He could run with the 400s on the ½ mile. Impressive.

Tons of beautiful Triumphs!

Lined-up for rider intros Monday night. That’s me in the SB Dick Mann T, Birtwhistle to my right, my son Joe to the left.

That 44x Honda 250 was super-trick. #90 is Jim Henry. This was his 50th year racing in Stockton. He loaned me a set of leathers!
 
Here's a video where I get a lucky last corner pass on Travis Newbold (Pikes Peak Winner!!!! So cool) for 2nd in the final Vet 30+ race. [That is NOT lucky. You kept focussed and he made a mistake. Great pass. Big post coming on Travis soon]
Travis is fast becoming one of my racing heroes. That guy races whenever, however, and wherever he can! I'm unbelievably impressed with how he won Pikes Peak (with time to spare no less). I'm back at the old short track Saturday night. I got a nasty cold in Kansas, so I'm hoping to feel a bit better by then. Great weekend. I came home with a few trophies.

American Supercamp

From Garrett B in Colorado

'Too tired and sore to even think at this point, so I'll give more details later, but check this out:
I wore my Dick Mann shirt on the last day of Supercamp. Chris Carr says, "Nice Sideburn shirt! Look at this!" This man is amazing to watch and learn from.'

That's an old Sideburn shirt, by the way.

We have a great interview with Chris coming up in SB10. G

Learn to Race, Ride, Slide

We were honoured when, a couple of years ago, Chris Carr said he'd like to sell Sideburn from his pit at the GNC races. Now he has retired from racing (but certainly not flat track), our GNC pit salesman is National #10, Johnny Lewis. This is great for us. Johnny is polymathic, a thinker, a do-er and he also, sometimes, races dressed as the Cookie Monster. Johnny is in Sideburn 9, makes a mean video too (that's his work at the top) and has his fingers in a few different pies. One is a riding/race school. Check out the front wheel saves they teach. They have an incredible roster of instructors - #1 Jake Johnson, Jared Mees, Kenny Coolbeth, Tim Eades, Johnny himself. This is what he says about it.

We had a great weekend with wonderful weather and tons of great talent!
For more info on the school and our plans for 2012 please contact me. New website being released soon!SNEAK PEEK
Johnny Lewis
RIDE Academy- marketing manager

For those in the UK looking for a flat track taster, we've been hearing good things about Peter Boast's low-key and friendly Short Track UK School in North Lincolnshire. G

Springfield Mile II by Fast and Dirty

2011 Springfield Mile II AMA Pro Flat Track Video from TheFastandDirty.com on Vimeo.

Their footage of the first of 2011's Springfield Miles was great and this latest offering from Fast and Dirty is right up there too. Brilliant stuff (even if the soundtrack is prog-rock). G

STUK American Trip report

The Short track UK Team left Heathrow, London on 10th August to compete in some of the oldest and most famous flattrack meetings in the USA. Boastie lead the team of some of the best young riders in the country - Tom Woolley, Ben Baker and Tim Neave, along with the crew of Tom's grandad Melv, Ben's dad Kenny boy and Tim's Uncle Tim Coles who took all the pics.

We landed at St Louis and drove to Jefferson City, Missoure where we hooked up with Travis Smith (former spanner man for Jake Johnson, Chris Carr and Kopp), who runs DBM Motorsport and was supplying our bikes. Travis was flat out working on sprint cars when we rolled up at 11pm, some bikes were in bits, with engines out, heads off etc., and knowing we were testing the next day it seemed a lot of work but Travis worked through the night to get the engines together. The next day we all set to to put all the bikes together, then loaded up. Travis then informed us his local test track was 2 hours away, so by the time we got to the 5/8 ths banked stockcar track it was 10 pm. The owner met us at the gate, switched on the floodlights and said 'There you go boys, have skid, take long as you want' and they didn't even charge us a dollar!!

Our first meeting was at Colby, Kansas which was an 8 hour drive and we rolled up just in time for sign on. As we got into the pits Chris Carr was there to greet us shouting'hey you limeys can park near me'. Over the next two weeks Chris was awesome, he spent so much time coming over helping us with advice on riding and bike set up, plus showing us how to chew tobacco, cooking fresh fish for us all, and besides that he had all the races except one at Kansas. We all entered the pro 450 Class. The track was banked like Daytona, even the straights had steep banking. We all made it to the final, me and Ben were a bit off the pace in the final, Tom was on the back of a freight train but Tim was the star rider and finished 7th in the final.

Next day it was a 2 hour trip to Norton Kansas, a 1/2 mile dark clay track that was an old stock car track, lined with armco all the way round with the odd straw bale. We were all going much quicker than we were used to but it still blue groved up. Again, we all made the final, Tom had a fantastic ride and got 5th, I was 10th, Ben 11th and Tim had header pipe crack and had to retire. There was some sad news that one of the vintage competitors crashed and died at track, which we didn't find out till after the meeting.

Next day we went to Weeknee race way and watched some Sprintcar racing, then on to Stockton Kansas,where they've been racing Flattrack at the Fair grounds since the 30's and the tradition was for all the riders to ride through the town on their bikes which was pretty cool. Chris Carr lead the parade behind a police car, while the rest of us popped wheelies behind.
We entered 2 pro class, open and 450. The Stockton track had a hard concrete wall at the start and finish but for the rest of the track there was nothing - just a bank to fly over if you got it wrong! It was a fast track with long straights and we all struggled a little bit with the pace over the two days. We made all the Finals filling the last 4 spots in final, but it still was great fun and we learnt a lot.

Next we had 2 days off from racing but we had an 8 hour drive back to Jefferson, a day working on the bikes, then a 6 hour drive to Peoria,IL Shorttrack, so not much rest was had. This time there was a lot stronger field and the Experts had their own Class and we rode in the pro 450. The track was banked like Colby but smaller and a bit rougher surface but you could ride anywhere high or low. We found it tough going only Tim made the Final where he finished 17th.

The next we were at Galesburg,IL, a little track standing on top of a mound, in the middle of a field, with gripiest dirt I've ever ridden, it was more like we ride back home. In practice Ben got it all wrong going into turn one and dissappeared over the edge, he must have flown 30ft through the air but managed to stay on! We were all a lot quicker here, we got to the Semi's and we were all in Semi 2. I got the holeshot, only to be passed by a girl (well a fast girl) Shyna Texter. By the end of the race Tim passed me for 3rd, I was 4th, Tom 5th, Ben 7th but only the winner got to the Final.

Next morning we were up at 6am to get to the famous Peoria TT track. Tom was the only rider representing UK and only had 4 laps to try to get used to track before qualifing, then he had 2x 4 laps to get into the top 32 out 42 riders - a pretty tall order as all the other riders had raced here two months ago. Tom missed the cut at 39th fastest but we were still proud of him, he was just 0.8 second off making the show. 30,000 fans watched the meeting (wish we could get same at kings lynn). Henry Wiles won again, I think thats his fourth time now but he's still got few more wins to get yet to beat Chris's 9 wins. It was Chris 's last time at Peoria and they gave him a great send off.
We said our goodbyes to new and old friends we've met and headed back to St Louis to catch our plane back to Blitey, having had a great time.

Where do we start with thank yous?
Travis Smith (for sorting bikes and transport),Chris Carr and family for spending so much time with us ,Frank Harding and his Team at the Kansas races, All our sponsors including Jacopo Monti, Marshall Kinrade and every one who sponsored our push bike ride at Amman, we all appreciate your help with our trip of a lifetime.

Pete Boast

Hartford Half-Mile photos

Johnny Lewis styling. He came fifth in the Main, last Saturday, and is 7th overall in the GNC combined championship (combined singles and twins, that is)The 2009 Champion (and Sideburn 3 cover star) won the first GNC visit to this Michigan half-mile.Shaun (Shawn?) Russell and JR Schnabel on the Werner/Springsteen Kawasakis looked great, but didn't make it beyond the semis. There were two Kawasakis in the main, 10 Johnny Lewis and 37 Jimmy Wood.Chris Carr - on his Farewell tour and still on it. Came fourth in the 25-lap main.
Lewis (Kawasaki, see), Coolbeth, Johnson.

UPDATE: As Nick pointed out in the comments (and I meant to note when I downloaded these photos), this is a textbook blue groove, if new fans had heard the phrase but didn't know what it meant. Certain kinds of surfaces allow rubber to be laid down to make a racing line. It makes it hard to overtake (though on a half-mile or mile at least there's a chance to draft down the straights - not so easy for evenly matched machinery on a blue groove short track). Get off the groove and the grip is diminished.
Sammy Halbert and 58 is Adam Carpinello. In the main, Sammy came sixth, Adam was 10th. I'm digging Adam's Spencer Rep Arai and his body position. I dream about looking this good on a race bike.
Another view of that battle. 73 is Doug Lawrence.
Bryan Smith (Sideburn 7 cover star), back on an XR750 after a season on Kawasaki. He came 3rd overall.

There are two men in this photo - J Mees and J Lewis. Only one of them has won $1000 in the four-lap, six-man Dash for Cash. Can you guess which one?

Pro Singles podium -1st Mike Avila, 2nd Gerit Callies, 3rd Michael Martin. Does Michael look a lot like Leo Sayer or is it just me? G

Photos: AMA Pro Racing

DuQuoin Indoor Short Track

The Springfield TT and Mile is this weekend and we found these AMA Pro Racing photos we hadn't posted to whet your appetites. This is Jake Johnson in his Troy Lee pyjamas.
Indoor short track rules. This is DuQuoin all prepped for the race on April 16, earlier this year.
Nicole Cheza seems to do better on the big tracks. She didn't make the main at DuQuoin.
Robert Pearson styling.
Jared Mees leads Jake Johnson. Jake came third in the main, J-Rod fourth.
Sammy Halbert and Johnny Leiws. This looks like a battle. Sammy was 5th, Johnny 8th.
The podium - Chris Carr in his farewell year shows he's still happy to have a few rounds of fighting in a phone booth. Kenny Coolbeth won. G